America and Monroe
by Einsamer Ritter
Summary: this fic follows America in the 1950s and his connection with the stars of the day, particularly his friendship with Marilyn Monroe. Especially of her inner turmoil and her desperate need to be loved, a feeling America is all too familiar with.
1. Chapter 1

Um... Well, it's probably redundant, but here's my take on Alfred/Marilyn. Pardon my tendency to go on and on. ^^;

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Alfred was absolutely sure that the war would be over in no more than a year, or at least that's what he told himself, ever mindful of the need to think positively. Things hadn't exactly been going to plan, but they were going as well as could be expected... but FDR wasn't doing so hot and Alfred was worrying that the VP wouldn't be up to taking over. You know, if...

But the Dream Factory was still in full swing, and like most Americans Alfred could always count on the movies to give him a much-needed dose of optimism. Standing on the battlefields with the dead and dying, Alfred couldn't muster up the we'll-lick-'em-good-this-time mindset he needed; at the same time, he couldn't risk letting the public know if he ever thought differently, because Mr. President had ordered all concerns to remain on a need-to-know basis. There was no point in making the folks at home even more worried about their loved ones, especially now that the war was coming to a close, and it was easier for Alfred to bite his tongue and smile reassuringly after hours in the comfortable dark of the moviehouse.

In '44 he made the rounds on the homefront as well as on the field, watching and listening to the eyes and ears of the United States, making sure that war production stayed up and morale did the same, and in between he saw endless war movies (some good, some not) and even more Westerns (which he always watched with a pang of nostalgia), and he was whistling 'Meet Me In St. Louis' across the Radio Plane Munitions factory floor as Davy Conover said something about really cheering up the troops when Alfred's eyes met a pair of eyes just as blue, peeking out from under the de facto hairnet and red-auburn bangs. The woman (girl?) smiled, almost shyly, and Alfred was struck by the sheer sense of prettiness around her: Not the so-delicate type, no, but there was something...

Davy stopped talking and fidgeted, eyebrow arched; you didn't just poke the avatar of your nation after all, even if you're getting behind on your schedule and the photo-shoot needs to go ahead and... David's eyes followed Alfred's gaze across the floor and slam-banged right into a knockout of a woman, and David reacted with the bright smile and raised camera that was his best line.

"'Scuse me miss, David Conover for Yank magazine, you ever think of being a model before?"

The war was won the following year, and there was too much to do for Alfred to keep in touch with her, the girl who said her name was Norma Jean. David commented he didn't think a name like that belonged on a body like hers, but Alfred shrugged; he knew what it was like to not look your name, so he wasn't too surprised to find out that she'd changed it. He was surprised to find she'd gotten a divorce, since he hadn't guessed that she was married, but... Well, a girl like her, why wouldn't she be? But things were changing fast and although Alfred would pick her name out on automatic as he scanned the papers, there wasn't much else he had time to do.

Alfred was there at the premiere, though, of All About Eve, asked to come by Bette and spending most of the night around the tightly-knit core of MGM stars. Marilyn was popular as well, looking her best (she was a blonde now) and positively angelic, and when he approached she smiled beautifully - still with just a touch of shyness - and said she didn't think someone important like him would remember her, but she hoped he liked the film.

There wasn't long to talk, but Alfred thought he liked Marilyn, even though he couldn't quite say why. Of course she was beautiful, but there was something else he couldn't quite put his finger on...


	2. Chapter 2

In '53 Alfred spent half his time in the Oval Office, when he wasn't busy making the rounds in Hollywood and spending time with the people who - like himself - were busy shaping America's image: at the craps tables, and through a haze of cigar smoke and up there on the silver cinema screen. He hung around with Humphrey and Judy and Frank and Lauren, and they talked about nothing much and made sure to look as glamorous as possible for the media on the scene; they joked about making their own little club, and Alfred laughed and thought of NATO and tried hard to keep on laughing. The Hollywood of the movie-house was still a blessed relief, and he laughed through How To Marry A Millionare and found himself whistling 'Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend.'

One day he and Marilyn found themselves at lunch together, although Marilyn was busy and god knows Alfred was too, and they were deep in conversation over cigarettes and pasta, and Alfred was surprised to find that Marilyn was not much like the girl she played on screen. True, she radiated sexual chemistry with everyone in the vicinity, and it was probably true that troops overseas (Alfred hated that U.S. troops were still overseas) would probably fight another war for her alone, but sometimes Marilyn would say something and it would almost sound like regret, but she'd always brush it off and smilingly admit that she loved her life. Alfred was glad, but he wasn't quite sure why she would have to admit such a thing; wasn't it a good thing to be loved? Wasn't it great that she went from no-name country girl to a brilliant rising star?

Marilyn would nod her head in a way that made her golden curls bob like a halo seen through a heatwave, and her lips would curve in that teasing friendly way and she'd say "You know, I always remind myself of that, every day I'm here." And then the conversation would turn, and they'd talk of something else, and everyone would stare at the two gorgeous blond/es with the blue, blue eyes.

In '54, Alfred met her one day for coffee and Marilyn was almost giddy, clutching her cup in one hand and a cigarette in the other, beaming like a little girl. "Joe proposed," she said, and Alfred swept her up in a hug. Joe was a great guy, a great ballplayer, and if he was maybe a little moody sometimes, well, so was Marilyn, although her public never saw her that way. And they were a fairybook couple, weren't they? Just two kids from nowhere, fighting their way to the top in the Land of Opportunity. Alfred was at their wedding, and he was there nine months later when the fairybook couple split. He went to Joe first, went boozing with the Yankee Clipper and his brothers, and never once did Joe say anything against his newlywed ex-wife, except maybe that she just wasn't able to stand up to the people who loved her.

Later, in the house where Marilyn was once again at home, Marilyn curled up against Alfred's chest and Alfred almost forgot that she was THE Blonde Bombshell, because right now she just looked like a sad little girl and it hurt him inside. She just wanted someone to care about her, to show it by their closeness and their warmth, and Alfred thought that he knew what that felt like, and what it was to be unable to ask for that outright, and he wondered how many men (or women) could hold Marilyn Monroe like he was and only want to make her sadness go away.

How could this be happening, he thought, to good people at the top of their game? Shouldn't this be the happily ever after? Marilyn didn't cry much, but she didn't talk either; her eyes seemed too large in the half-light, too bright, and it worried Alfred terribly. He had always felt better, when he was very young, after a good cry... but then, there had always been someone who made him feel better. He didn't understand how someone like Marilyn, who was the focus of so much love, could feel so all alone.


	3. Chapter 3

The movies came, and each brought Marilyn a step closer to immortality, and even when the crises came (as they always did) it seemed like the lights of Hollywood could never go out. Alfred was an honorary member of the Rat Pack, which was what Humphrey'd decided on calling their little group, and Judy got stick-pin rats with rubies for eyes, and Sammy and Dean joined in. The Fifties were peaking and so were its stars, and despite everything Alfred still made time for Marilyn, who talked to him when she could and sometimes about what she couldn't say.

She'd tried, more than once, to explain the price of fame; how being famous meant being loved, but also meant being less of a person. Alfred was sincerely shocked to find that some people hated Marilyn because she was something they could never be, and others because she was only human after all- And Alfred was uncomfortable with how familiar that sounded. She talked, sometimes, about how hard it got when you didn't want to perform, when you were tired and hurt and just plain sick of making others feel good when you didn't, and Alfred nodded and tightened his arms around her just a little, because god knows that acting stopped being fun after a while.

Marilyn said, more than once, that it seemed like people were always pulling her in different directions, and she'd asked Alfred directly if he didn't feel like that sometimes too. Alfred didn't like lying any more than he had to, but he didn't like admitting anything either, so Marilyn just gifted him that sad-pretty smile and kissed him softly, lips against lips, and the curve of her mouth was pretty-beautiful because it was still just a little sad.

She said that more often after she married that playwright, and a little less after they divorced.

At the Golden Globes of 1962, Marilyn Monroe was the Female World Film Favorite and no-one was surprised, although Alfred was surprised at how nonchalant, in private, she seemed to be. There was rumors about her now, some vicious, about how her beauty won her the ear of the Mob or the attentions of the Kennedy Clan, and Alfred didn't think it was right to ask her, but although the world still saw their vivacious Marilyn, those who knew her well could see that she was slowly losing her will to shine. On July 3rd of that same year, Alfred found himself exhausted and pleasantly so, the night an almost surreal blur of Marilyn's famous satin sheets and her famous, famous beauty, and Alfred couldn't shake the feeling that making love to Marilyn was like making love in a movie, each tiny movement perfected to the point of being almost fake. But there was something fragile in this night, a teetering edge that set the mood and drew it taut from start to finish and start again, until the clock struck one on her bedside and Marilyn smiled up at him from where she was sprawled in languid splendor across his chest, and said something completely unexpected.

"You know, when I was a girl..." Marilyn paused, bit lightly at her lower lip in a nervous habit rarely seen; Alfred, half-sitting against her pillows, tilted his head in curiosity, ghosting the pad of his thumb across her lush mouth until she half-smiled again. "When I just got here," she said, "I'd look out of my apartment and think, There are a thousand other girls right now dreaming about being a star. But it doesn't matter, because I'm dreaming harder than all of them.'"

"And you made it," reminded Alfred, his fingertips trailing over her cheek. "You're bigger than all of them. You're top of the heap, Frankie'd say. A-Number-One." And as she took her hands in his, pressing it to her cheek as though for warmth, Marilyn shook her head, those golden locks no less beautiful for being mussed by activity.

"It's all make-believe, isn't it?"

Alfred didn't know what to say, and Marilyn only smiled again, and this time his heart broke, it was so sad and so lovely. Reaching up to wrap her arms around his neck, their bodies pressed together as though she wanted to sink into his skin, Marilyn buried her face in the crook of his bare neck and whispered "Happy Birthday, Mister Jones."


End file.
